clay woes

Crazy happenings are occurring in the Ferraioli household. The clay I use for my figurines is getting a little unpredictable lately. I've been getting a few bad batches and it's starting to really get annoying. Usually when I go to pick out the clay, I'm hunched over the shelf, opening all the packages (it's okay, it's just a flip top, no seal breaking. i'm not that douche), poking them to see how soft they are. If the block of clay is too soft, I know it's going to be terrible to work with. It's the difference between say...trying to sculpt with softened butter versus refrigerated cream cheese. Weird analogy, I know.
A couple of weeks ago, I was desperate. I needed clay and the store only had the "soft butter" clay blocks. Great. Awesome. I'll deal. I guess.



Not only did ALL of my little clay figurines slump over in the oven, but their bitty heads all cracked at the necks. Needless to say...it was not a good day.
I used the rest of the butter clay as filler for other random things, and cursed the day I ever got desperate.

Then the other day, I went and picked up more clay. It was the good kind! The refrigerated cream cheese kind.
But of course, because the universe is against me, something went wrong again. While making a few 3 inch cake topper figurines, some of their bottoms bubbled out. Possibly I didn't knead the clay enough or smush the foil inside tight enough and it made an air pocket. Either way, those are scrapped. What a waste.
I did save one to use to verify the size for my future cake toppers though! Doesn't he look happy...

more ventures in rubber stamping!

A few blog posts ago I shared my cupcake stamp that I had carved from a rather soft piece of linoleum. While it was nice to carve into, it was kind of crumbly. So I scoured the web for a sturdier block. I read that a certain kind of rubber eraser also works well for carving into stamps and Peaseblossomstudio also suggested it to me, so I tried it out this weekend.

Everything comes with a lesson I suppose. And when it comes to rubber stamp carving, next time I'll make sure to flip the image before I carve it!



What's pitiful is I didn't realize until I tried out the stamp that the image would stamp backwards. dummy.

But I definately plan on buying more erasers. It was fun and fast!